


Slipping the Leash

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage, White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe, Con Artists, Gen, Heist, Long Shot, Temptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 07:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: Sometimes good guys make the best bad guys. Thief Nate is brought in by the FBI White Collar Crimes division and framed for a job he didn't commit. He manages to convince 4 agents - Sophie, Hardison, Parker, and Eliot - to start pulling jobs with him.





	Slipping the Leash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meils121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meils121/gifts).



> I wrote an entire series on the notion that Kate was Damien Moreau's little sister, and IT NEVER ONCE OCCURRED TO ME TO WRITE THIS AU! I cannot believe this.
> 
> And yes, I'm pretty much promising you haven't seen the end of this story. I'm only sorry I don't have the space right now to do it justice. But please accept it as our thanks for your AMAZING work this year. You have single-handedly elevated our little corner of the Leverage universe to a new and wonderful level.
> 
> Hope to see you next year!

_”You understand how this works?”_

_“I'm being released into the custody of the FBI, under your supervision. Anything else?”_

_“Yeah, if you run, and I catch you, which you know I will, you're not back here for four years, you're back here for good.”_  
***********************************  
Four years and the full might of the New York office of the FBI’s White Collar Crimes division, and in the end it was a heist he _wasn’t_ responsible for that landed Nathan Ford behind bars.

Nate liked to think that the right attorney would have been able to ‘beat the rap’ as the saying went, but if such an attorney existed he was well out of reach of Nate or anyone he knew. The lawyers he could afford, who would take his call, tended to get caught up in the issue of his credibility. No, he hadn’t stolen the Raphael painting from a private collection in SoHo, but he _had_ stolen other Raphael paintings from other private collections in other areas of Manhattan.

His offer to Sterling wasn’t a solution to his situation in the end, but it bought him time he wouldn’t have otherwise had – time to look for a way out that didn’t involve the FBI chasing him to the ends of the Earth.

It also gave him access to Sophie; yin to his yang, and the one thing in all the world capable of keeping him from being dragged down by his impulsive nature and baser instincts. That they were lovers was no great secret – in fact, when Nate was dismissed to go home after his release, Sterling mockingly asked him to “give Mademoiselle Devereaux my regards”.

“I assumed he would try to keep you close,” Sophie mused after they had finished making love for the first time that night. “Cut you off from your old life.”

Nate shook his head. “That’s the genius of the deal. He needs my old life to make this relationship work. Add in the temptation that I’ll slip and end up back in jail means it’s a win-win for Agent Sterling.” His hands moved across her skin as they lay together, mapping every curve and slope of her body – committing her to memory on that most primal of levels. “I missed you so much.”

They kissed. “Let’s see about making sure we never have to go through this again,” she told him. Sophie’s foot nudged his ankle bracelet. “I’m already tired of that thing, for the record.”

Nate knew just how she felt.   
****************************  
His first few days as a ‘consultant’ for the FBI were everything Nate had always hated about a normal life. He reported to the White Collar offices at 8am, took a seat at his desk, and began reviewing the files he was given. He took breaks, drank way too much coffee, and tried to learn as much as he could about his new surroundings.

Occasionally he was summoned to sit in on meetings with Agent Sterling’s team – the men and woman who were ultimately responsible for his arrest and incarceration. They reviewed active cases and Nate offered his opinion when asked. He didn’t mind the meetings as much – analyzing the evidence through the lens of his own experiences was at least mildly challenging, and it gave him an opportunity to observe the people that stood between him and freedom.

“Parker is Sterling’s protégé,” he reported his third night as they lay together in bed. “Thinks like a thief – when he takes credit for figuring out how a break-in happened, it’s her work backing him up.” _And probably the reason he accepted your proposal,_ Nate realized. If one person with the mindset of a thief could put him on top, having an actual thief in his pocket would be even better.

Sophie’s nimble fingers combed idly through the tangle of curls. It was soothing, and Nate leaned easily into her touch. “What does she care about? Does she have a sweetheart? Family?”

Nate considered everything he’d been able to learn about the young woman in five days. “I think she’s interested in Sterling’s tech expert, but if I’m right they’re in the early stages. Might be something to work with there, but I’d have to use a delicate touch.”

“Which you are perfectly brilliant at my darling,” she reassured him. “What about any less…carnal…interests?”

“Sweet tooth,” he said automatically. “Pretty epic one too. I also heard her talking about a rock climbing trip – she sounded pretty passionate about it.” Which tracked with his overall impression of Parker as someone with a daredevil streak; a law enforcement officer with a little too much interest in the criminals she chased.

He didn’t waste time wondering how the information he’d gathered could be turned to their advantage – that was Sophie’s job, and he’d never met anyone better at it. “You mentioned a tech expert,” she said. “Tell me about him.”

“Alec Hardison,” he replied. “Young – considered a prodigy by the department. Definitely more comfortable with computers than people. Interests seem to run pretty true to geek culture. He’s got a bunch of autographed photos on the wall – mostly head shots, but he’s in probably a dozen of them with different actors.” The only one of the group he’d recognized had been William Shatner, but that one had impressed Nate.

“Goes to a lot of conventions,” Sophie mused. “Okay. What else?”

“His desk is covered with action figures,” Nate told her.

“Get pictures,” Sophie countered. “We’ll have to research what shows or movies they come from.” She made a small noise that Nate took as uncertainty. “Really hard-core geeks are difficult to get close to,” she admitted. “They tend to be very tribal, and there’s a level of passion and focus at work that’s hard to fake.”

 _Hard…not impossible,_ Nate acknowledged. “The last member of the team’s Eliot Spencer. Ex-military. Army Rangers, I think, but there’s also hints of something darker. I couldn’t tell you what or why, but there’s something about him that just screams ‘black ops’.” He laughed suddenly, remembering a conversation he’d overheard earlier in the week. “He’s smarter than you’d take at first look. I think he likes people underestimating him.”

“Interesting,” Sophie mused, her tone indicating that she could definitely work with what he’d given her. “And finally, Agent Sterling himself. Who, if we play this right, will end up looking like a slapped mackeral.”

Pushing himself up, Nate leaned in to kiss her. “I’m counting on it,” he told her. “And you.”  
***************************************  
They agreed that at least at first, Eliot would be Sophie’s problem. “Sex is the easiest way to get to somebody like that,” she had pointed out. “At least at first. And you, my love, are lacking the right equipment to make the necessary moves.”

Nate wasn’t entirely in agreement with her assessment of Spencer, but he hadn’t come this far by not trusting her when it counted. For his part, he began looking at his case files with fresh eyes. “We need something that can lure them over the line. Nothing big to start – just enough temptation to draw them in.” 

And the deeper they sank the more completely Nate would control them.

He also started working on in-roads with Parker and Hardison. Nothing too overt at first – asking Parker’s advice for sites outside the city good for a first-time rock climber and listening attentively for twenty minutes as she dissected the positives and negatives of a location in Long Island run by Outward Bound. For Hardison he managed to score a VIP pass to the New York Comicon, including a meet and greet with Mark Hamill.

“Are you sure you don’t want this for yourself?” Hardison asked, clearly stunned when he read the pass and realized what Nate had done.

“A friend had an extra,” he said, waving aside the offer. “Asked me if I knew somebody who could use it. Enjoy yourself!”

It was easier to feign surprise when Agent Sterling had positioned himself so close to the entrance to Hardison’s office that Nate practically tripped over him. “Sorry,” Nate managed, resetting the space between them immediately to something more comfortable. “Didn’t see you there. Did you want me for something?”

Sterling studied him for a long moment. “He can’t hack the signal to your tracking anklet you know,” he said finally, gesturing for Nate to walk with him. Nate heard a small puff of breath, almost like a chuckle, then Sterling allowed, “Okay, he probably _could_ , but he won’t. You’re wasting your time.”

“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nate said, although he filed the information away for potential future exploitation. It had genuinely never occurred to him to have Hardison hack the tracking anklet, but awareness that he _could_ might come in handy. “Just trying to fit in.”

Stopping, Sterling pivoted to block Nate’s path. “Get this straight. You’re not here to ‘fit in’. This isn’t some sort of rehabilitation gig. It’s a work release program. So long as your work serves my needs, you’re getting along fine.”

If there had been any doubt before, Nate was certain now. He was going to _enjoy_ this.  
*******************************  
It was nearly a month before Nate’s instincts latched onto a case that might serve his interests. In spite of Sterling’s warnings, he’d continued pursuing a friendship of sorts with both Parker and Hardison. It was a delicate dance, setting things up so that they were comfortable around him without the overt camaraderie likely to draw the head agent’s attention before Nate was ready.

There had been a rash of jewelry thefts in Manhattan lately, high end pieces from well known collections. It had taken a while for them to come to the attention of the local White Collar crew, because the thefts themselves hadn’t become known until a particularly attentive insurance appraiser realized the pieces he was tasked with examining were near perfect copies of the original pieces purchased.

“Our analysts say the work is better than anything they’ve seen from the local forgers,” Agent Sterling told the team as a screen behind him flashed pictures of the compromised pieces in succession. He caught Nate’s eye. “Unless you know something they don’t?”

He didn’t, and Nate was comfortable admitting as much. “If you can tell me how far back these sorts of swaps go, it would help me start asking the right questions.” Forgery, especially of the shinier things in life, had always been more Sophie’s area than his. He knew some of the best in the field through his association with her, but even he had to admit this looked like it was beyond them.

Thoughts of Sophie drew his eye to Eliot, who was looking rougher and rougher as the days went on. Nate hadn’t pressed for details, but he knew from long experience how hard Sophie could be on a man when she turned on the charm. He wondered idly how big a hit Agent Spencer’s bank account had taken so far?

“Six months,” Hardison said. “Some similar MOs go back further, but it’s clearly a different hand making the copies. At this point we’ve got sixteen different collections, forty pieces, and conservatively thirty million dollars.”

“Anything that tie the collections together?” Nate asked. If the case was smaller in scope he would have directed the agents to look for someone who was a friend or a family member; possibly somebody who worked for the different houses or was connected to somebody who did.

 _Sixteen different collections, though…_ “Check business connections,” he said, getting to his feet and moving closer to the screen. “Insurance companies, have they had similar types of repairs or maintenance lately…have they had any parties where the same catering company might have been in play?”

Agent Sterling was nodding as Nate came back to himself, clearly pleased with what he had heard. “Check it out,” he told Hardison.

“We’ll want to set up a trap once we’ve got the connection figured out,” Spencer offered. “Something he can’t resist.”

“You can’t make it too obvious though,” Nate countered, his need to be contrary slipping out before he could stop it. “At the level this guy operates, he’s going to smell anything that’s only half-way done.”

He could feel Sterling’s eyes on him and was braced for a cutting comment when his handler said, “You take the lead then, Ford. Help us put together the kind of trap that would catch you.”  
********************************************  
Sophie knew exactly who they were looking for, and she wasn’t pleased. “Nate no,” she said, once he laid everything out for her. “It’s like trying to put Picasso or Van Gogh behind bars. You can’t ask me to be a party to it!”

Her response was so passionate that Nate was caught for a moment between wanting to laugh and wanting to kiss her. “Sterling is letting me craft the trap, Sophie. That means I control who we catch in it.” He caught her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “Do you think if I got you pictures of one of the pieces we use as bait he would be willing to construct a copy?”

“Just one?” she asked, her expression thoughtful. “He won’t do it for nothing.”

Nate nodded. “If he can give us a corporate rate, that would be amazing. If not, I’ll pay fair market value.” It would drain a lot of his savings, but if it worked, it would give him exactly the foothold he’d been looking for.

Sophie’s expression lit up. “What is going on in that amazing head of yours?”

Pulling her into his lap, Nate kissed her thoroughly. “I’m thinking that, given the opportunity to make off with a single piece in the confusion of a failed trap, only a saint would walk away,” he told her once he finally let her up for air.

She saw where he was going immediately. “And you don’t work for saints.”


End file.
